1. In the exclusive economic zone, the coastal State shall have the exclusive right to construct and to authorize and regulate the construction, operation and use of:

(a) artificial islands;

(b) installations and structures for the purposes provided for in article 56 and other economic purposes;

(c) installations and structures which may interfere with the exercise of the rights of the coastal State in the zone.

2. The coastal State shall have exclusive jurisdiction over such artificial islands, installations and structures, including jurisdiction with regard to customs, fiscal, health, safety and immigration laws and regulations.

3. Due notice must be given of the construction of such artificial islands, installations or structures, and permanent means for giving warning of their presence must be maintained. Any installations or structures which are abandoned or disused shall be removed to ensure safety of navigation, taking into account any generally accepted international standards established in this regard by the competent international organization. Such removal shall also have due regard to fishing, the protection of the marine environment and the rights and duties of other States. Appropriate publicity shall be given to the depth, position and dimensions of any installations or structures not entirely removed.

4. The coastal State may, where necessary, establish reasonable safety zones around such artificial islands, installations and structures in which it may take appropriate measures to ensure the safety both of navigation and of the artificial islands, installations and structures.

5. The breadth of the safety zones shall be determined by the coastal State, taking into account applicable international standards. Such zones shall be designed to ensure that they are reasonably related to the nature and function of the artificial islands, installations or structures, and shall not exceed a distance of 500 metres around them, measured from each point of their outer edge, except as authorized by generally accepted international standards or as recommended by the competent international organization. Due notice shall be given of the extent of safety zones.

6. All ships must respect these safety zones and shall comply with generally accepted international standards regarding navigation in the vicinity of artificial islands, installations, structures and safety zones.

7. Artificial islands, installations and structures and the safety zones around them may not be established where interference may be caused to the use of recognized sea lanes essential to international navigation.

8. Artificial islands, installations and structures do not possess the status of islands. They have no territorial sea of their own, and their presence does not affect the delimitation of the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone or the continental shelf.

It seems to me from this that because any seastead is an artifical island or structure, that the only place you could realisitcally set up an idependent seastead is outside of national EEZ’s. This excludes almost any feasible construction site, prevents any ability to gather resources and due to universal jurisdiction the seastead could be labeled as pitrates and removed if they got any nation state sutible annoyed. This leaves the only realistic option left as to be endorsed/sponsered by, and be part of, an extisting nation state and set up in their territorial waters subject to their laws, hence removing most of the point of seasteading.

They seem to have wrapped up any possibility of being free on this earth. I suggest we try for space steading instead. They havn’t ruined that yet (well except for all the treaties governing earth orbit, so we’d have to go further away than that!).

Welcome aboard! This is an issue that has bee discussed at length on several threads and if you use the search function you should be able to find them. There are a number of ways to get around the Law of the Seas Treaty…

Welcome aboard! This is an issue that has bee discussed at length on several threads and if you use the search function you should be able to find them. There are a number of ways to get around the Law of the Seas Treaty…

I cannot find any mention on this site of how to get around this law. Most people say ignore it, something a nation state who’s EEZ you set up in will not do (inb4: sealand: They set up before the law was brought in so there posistion was grandfathered).

Personally the only way round I can see is to try and become an semi/fully autotominous part of an existing state, something like a british crown dependency. I know its not true indepence, but as things stand it seems the only plausible route is to make the proverbile ‘deal with the devil’.

Welcome aboard! This is an issue that has bee discussed at length on several threads and if you use the search function you should be able to find them. There are a number of ways to get around the Law of the Seas Treaty…

I cannot find any mention on this site of how to get around this law. Most people say ignore it, something a nation state who’s EEZ you set up in will not do (inb4: sealand: They set up before the law was brought in so there posistion was grandfathered).

Personally the only way round I can see is to try and become an semi/fully autotominous part of an existing state, something like a british crown dependency. I know its not true indepence, but as things stand it seems the only plausible route is to make the proverbile ‘deal with the devil’.

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The work-around is fairly simple, we use ferrocement-boats, and then on the ocean, in some area with low-waves we connect them together to make floating-islands, from where they could be moved anywhere really.

We can use catamarans (fast) or other boats to go to and from land to gather terrestrial resources and do trades, also we can use diving-miner-robots to harvest materials from the ocean floor. We could find our floating-seastead-islands again using sonar or radio beacons, along with estimated locations based on currents.

Since you asked, I’ll tell you of my chosen path around the Laws of the Sea: The Oceanic Citizens Republic. If you follow the link provided and click on the Constitution link you will find this:

I.2.1 The Oceanic Citizens Republic’s Home Territory and Home Territorial Surface is One Square Nautical Mile located at 121.34.00W to 121.35.00W, 10.00.00S to 10.01.00S, within section ‘E’ of the International SeaLand Enterprises (ISLE) claim of September 1975.

The International SeaLand Enterprises (ISLE) made its clame in 1975 before the LOS existed. Since ALL nations acept the idea that ex-post facto laws are unlawful and not binding on pre existing claims, the Republic has a legal leg to stand on. Further, because the ocean, the water itself and everything in it and the land its over, basically everything that was/is not already claimed by existing nation/states is the held in common as the heritage of mankind and so cannot be leagally ‘claimed’ by ‘anyone’ or any ‘thing’ the Constitution goes on to say:

I.2.3 The Oceanic Citizens Republic makes no claims in its Home Territorial Surface or in its Extra-Territorial Surfaces save the right of its Citizen Captains, Subject Citizens and Subjects to peaceably assemble, live and exercise the Rights of Sovereign Government sharing in the common heritage of mankind, the sea.

Since you asked, I’ll tell you of my chosen path around the Laws of the Sea: The Oceanic Citizens Republic. If you follow the link provided and click on the Constitution link you will find this:

I.2.1 The Oceanic Citizens Republic’s Home Territory and Home Territorial Surface is One Square Nautical Mile located at 121.34.00W to 121.35.00W, 10.00.00S to 10.01.00S, within section ‘E’ of the International SeaLand Enterprises (ISLE) claim of September 1975.

The International SeaLand Enterprises (ISLE) made its clame in 1975 before the LOS existed. Since ALL nations acept the idea that ex-post facto laws are unlawful and not binding on pre existing claims, the Republic has a legal leg to stand on. Further, because the ocean, the water itself and everything in it and the land its over, basically everything that was/is not already claimed by existing nation/states is the held in common as the heritage of mankind and so cannot be leagally ‘claimed’ by ‘anyone’ or any ‘thing’ the Constitution goes on to say:

I.2.3 The Oceanic Citizens Republic makes no claims in its Home Territorial Surface or in its Extra-Territorial Surfaces save the right of its Citizen Captains, Subject Citizens and Subjects to peaceably assemble, live and exercise the Rights of Sovereign Government sharing in the common heritage of mankind, the sea.

Thats not a viable work around as what you are cliaming as your territory cannot be defined as territory under international law post 1984 and so cannot be soverin and so cannot project terriorial claims on the sea. Also you need a treaty with sealand (or buy it, it’s going currently on sale for £750k). Then you go ahead and state that your not making any claims to territory, and so you can’t exercise “the right of its Citizen Captains, Subject Citizens and Subjects to peaceably assemble, live and exercise the Rights of Sovereign Government ” as sovereign government requires sovereign territory, which you in your own constitution you reliqusish any claim to. Also “the common herigtige of mankind” does mean that you can’t exploit any resources in those waters, living or not.

So the only working fully independent seastead is sealand and will probably remain so unless the seasteading institute manages to convince the UN and a large enough number fo its member states to change the law. Until then to have a realisitic chance of gettinga seastead running you will need the co-operation of a sovereign entity of some kind. Would also help with the funding!

I know alot of people hate the idea of being enthralled to an existing power, but I still cannot see a way round this.

You’ll find that there is a lot of debate here on the forums about what “territory” is. That is the sticking factor. I agree that claiming “territory” on the seas is going to be a tough case to make.

One thing though: you mention the word “law” a lot and it’s a bit of a misnomer. UNCLOS is not really a “law”…more like an agreed-upon set of rules that everyone kinda/sorta follows. Plenty of countries haven’t even ratified it but it seems to work for everyone so everyone follows it. There are no UNCLOS Police that drive around and arrest you if you break a rule. It’s more like a treaty than anything else.

That being said, the course that seems to be gaining momentum in the seasteading path is flying a flag of convenience. You can setup outside of any existing nation’s EEZ, fly the flag of Nigeria or someplace similar that offers open registries for cheap, and be protected from interference and have some level of independence.

Another complication is how your idea of a seastead is defined. Many believe in floating seasteads formed of a clump of small single-family seasteads, and this clump floats around the seas. Others plan large (or monolithic) structures that are permanently anchored/moored to the seafloor. Still others (myself included) opt for large structures attached to the sea floor (using compliant tower structures or dumping of materials like rock).

Basically, I think mobile seasteads will be classified as vessels and have tons of restrictions. You need international classifications, mandatory crew requirements, flags, etc. It’s hard to get independence that way. Fixed-location seasteads seem to me to be the only way to get real freedom. They aren’t classified as vessels so they don’t have flag or classification requirements, and will be taken more seriously as colonies than floating clumps of sailboats.

My current favorite idea, plucked from the recent news regarding Palestine, is going for non-member observer state status in the United Nations. While not binding with other nations (they still need to each recognize new states on their own) it goes a long way to establishing legitimacy in the world. I think a monolithic structure, attached to the sea floor in a relatively shallow area, with a large permanent population and functioning infrastructure could…COULD…get that kind of recognition from the General Assembly.

ISLE made the claim to a vast portion of the Pacific Oceans floor. That’s the bottom of the sea. I own with clear and free title one square nauticle mile of that ocean floor. The 1984 law you refer to does (ex post facto) not apply to the ISLE claim and so does not apply to their transfer of ownership of my land to me. Also, ISLE has nothing whatever to do with Sealand.

early 15c., “land under the jurisdiction of a town, state, etc.,” probably from L. territorium “land around a town, domain, district,” from terra “earth, land” (see terrain) + -orium, suffix denoting place (see -ory). An alternative theory, somewhat supported by the vowels of the original Latin word, suggests derivation from terrere “to frighten” (see terrible); thus territorium would mean “a place from which people are warned off.” Sense of “any tract of land, district, region” is first attested c.1600. Specific U.S. sense of “organized self-governing region not yet a state” is from 1799.

Staying true to the original latin vowels, a territory is a place from which others (those unwelcome) are frightened or terrified by terrible people (military) into leaving.

So the Only and I repeat Only way we could actually have a territory, and also how Sealand managed to get a territory, is by terrifing tresspassers into leaving the area. Thereby we’d have to have some kind of weapons, preferable non-lethal (so the terrified could spread the word), such as sonic-weapons, smoke/light-illusion, and radio-jamming. Most people namely civilians are fairly easily frightened and so could easily be detered. We should of course warn people that they are tresspassing before enabling defensive measures.

Also consider that usually we’d want to attract people, it’s only certain parties who we deem “bad” which would have to be terrified into leaving. Such people could include tax-collectors, foreign military, and those which have been banished.

Of course if it’s some very large military, we might serve better to hide our location, and run away, preferably submerged. Though eventually, with large enough seastead islands, we’ll be able to take on even the largest land-based navy, as seasteaders we’d have more people, and more boats/submarines.

Big-boats may look menacing, but they are slow to maneuver, and so many small boats can over-whelm them, especially if some of those little boats are submarine welders. I read about a star-fleet battle simulator, and someone who won using evolutionary algorithms, the winning combination, was many small heavily-armoured boats with fairly light weapons, overwhelming with numbers, doing damage faster than a bulky vessel could take them out, along with some super-fast boats as escape pods for worst-case-scenarios, moving faster (in our case probably deeper) than the big-guns could aim at them.

It’s somewhat similar to how fire-ants can dissuade you from stomping on their territory, even though they are very small, they are hard to kill, and their bites can leave marks for days. black-ants are also good at thriving, even though they only bite in worst-case-scenarios like being cornered. Ants of course are so good at thriving since most of there nests are underground, so much of our seastead could be submerged.

You can just fly a flag of anyone that hasn’t signed the convention. Lots of folks do intrude on EEZ’s , especially fishing rights, but you can find someone to sponsor you until you have the city built.

Then write a constitution, and open a bank, form your currency. then start opening embassies in countries where you like the politics, even land locked ones. You don’t even have to be in the UN to start doing that.

In fact, the fewer accords you sign, the fewer treaties you have to beholden too.

Then claim your now finished seastead as an embassy of Luna. (We are launching sattelites with Quicklaunch-right?). Luna is off limits to national colonies, but not commercial ones. You don’t even have to actually be there, just making the effort to get there.